


Greetings From The Nation

by ialpiriel



Series: Shadows Get Long [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen, Murder, Revenge, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 15:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5253869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ialpiriel/pseuds/ialpiriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>F!Courier meets ol’ Joshua after a good long time being away. It doesn’t go well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Greetings From The Nation

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on the [fallout kinkmeme](http://falloutkinkmeme.livejournal.com/4875.html?thread=7397643#t7397643)
> 
> warnings for violence + gore, mentions of past physical abuse

“Lucinda, what are you--”

“You heard about the Burned Man, didn’t you? Everyone did.”

“Of course I did.” He squats next to her, presses his back to the rock. It’s warm from the sun. Lucinda squats on the wood-slat bridge, splinters digging into one knee. “But he’s _dead_. He’s _been_ dead and the stories about him are just ghost stories told by stupid women and slaves.”

“That’s funny, because he’s right there.” Lucy nods down at Joshua Graham, seated next to the campfire, his book open and his finger tracking down the page.

“That just has to be someone pretending to be him.”

“No, that’s the Malpais Legate.” she sights down the barrel of her gun. “You’d have been, what, sixteen when Caesar had him lit and dumped?” She lowers her gun, curls her palm around the action, sets the butt in the gravel along the edge of the bridge. “And your contubernium wouldn’t have been important enough to meet the great Malpais Legate.” She digs through her pocket until she finds her beat-up cardboard box of ammunition. She reloads three cartridges into the magazine, chambers one. “Not the way the dog breeders were.”

“Caesar never gave you orders to kill him. The Burned Man is _dead_ , Lucinda.”

“He ate at our house, when I was seventeen.” She bares her teeth. “He hit me and Tatiana both, when we didn’t move fast enough.”

“Lucinda, what are you--”

She lifts her gun again, takes aim.

She would let him suffer, if that was reasonable, but he got lit on fire and dumped in a canyon.

One shot to the skull.

No getting up from that, as his brains splatter across the ground.

“Do not think that, because Daniel is a missionary, he cannot or will not defend himself,” Joshua had said back in Angel Cave.

One shot to the skull.

No chance to _defend himself_.

A half dozen of the Sorrows, glaring up at her as they dive for cover.

“How are we going to get out of here?” Strix asks, presses his back harder to the rock, grips the stock and the barrel of his repeater tightly. “There are more of them than of us.”

“There are always more of them than there are of us,” Lucida replies. “And if you haven’t learned that yet, you haven’t been watching.” Raises her gun to her shoulder, takes aim.

_Boom_ ; lever down; case ejected, lever up.

_Boom_ ; lever down; case ejected, lever up.

_Boom_ ; lever down; case ejected, lever up.

_Boom_ ; lever down; case ejected, lever up.

_Boom_ ; lever down; case ejected, lever up.

Hesitates, as she sights down the barrel at Waking Cloud. Lowers her gun, stands, waves Strix after her into the mouth of one of the caves.

***

“We thought you were like us,” Waking Cloud murmurs. She’s standing in the mouth of the cave, hesitant to step across the threshold. Afraid to break her taboo even now.

“I am,” Lucinda replies. She’s crouched, half-behind a rock. Strix is further back in the cave, holding Aphra by her ruff as she growls.

“No you’re _not_ ,” Waking Cloud says. “We thought you hated the White Legs and the Legion.”

“I do, but what good does fighting them do?” she asks. “All it gets you is a dead tribe.”

“Joshua could have helped us! Helped you!”

“He’s the reason the Legion exists, Waking Cloud. It’s his fault, as much as it’s Caesar’s.”

“He was trying to help!”

“No he wasn’t.” The Ghost of She’s paw hangs heavy at her hip, claws brushing the scuffed rock of the floor. _Scrape, scrape, scrape_ , every time she moves. “Caesar killed his tribe, so he killed back.”

“No,” Waking Cloud says. She’s still in the mouth of the cave, silhouetted. Lucinda takes aim, loosely, not dedicated to it yet.

“Your husband is dead. Daniel told me.”

“How--why did--”

“I’m sorry, Waking Cloud. I told him to tell you, but he couldn’t. I’m sorry your husband’s gone.”

“No,” Waking Cloud says again. Steps into the cave, raises her yao guai gauntlet.

_Boom_ ; lever down; case ejected, lever up.


End file.
